VBA/VSTO Interoperability feature in VSTO "Orcas" Beta 1
I've been using the Visual Studio Orcas March CTP release for the past three weeks; in particular I've been evaluating the VBA/VSTO interoperability feature. This feature allows you to expose VSTO code to the VBA environment. The experience is definitely VB centric - the VB experience is so easy to use it's trivial. C# on the other hand requires some effort (not much, but it's not the kind of thing you'd figure out on your own).
I thought the ribbon designer, while not complete, was helpful for quickly creating basic ribbons. The development experience feels similar to good ole' fashioned windows form development.
Finally, it's nice to be able to create document level customizations for Office 2007. I haven't gotten to the other new features yet (like the custom form region tool). Hopefully soon!
On a separate note, Ryan has been working on migrating an old Excel 2003/VSTO application to Excel 2007/VSTO "Orcas". While I deployed the old customization to an Excel 2007 box and it ran with no problems, we wanted to use this application as a base for evaluating other features. I thought it would be straightforward to bring the project forward, but Ryan ran into difficulties and basically had to re-create it manually. I'll have to get the details up on this. Or maybe Ryan could give us the scoop first hand?
Anyway, Beta 1 is out and if you've got some spare cycles, check it out:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa700831.aspx
For hassle-free evaluation (other than the downloading a few GB's), I'd go with the VPC images.